Outback Doctors/Outback Engagement/Outback Marriage/Outback Encounter

by Meredith Webber

  Caitlin reached the door then remembered the new lock. If the keys hadn’t been sitting beside it, would she have remembered to either take or hide her laptop?

  The realisation that she wouldn’t have made her stomach squirm.

  She picked it up, slid it into a plastic bag, put her notes and Anthea’s family tree in with it, dithered over the patient files she had and in the end decided to take them, too, then carted it all over to the hospital.

  Granny was looking well, sitting up in bed, her cheeks as pink as the knitted bed-jacket she was wearing.

  ‘About time you visited again,’ she scolded, and Caitlin apologised, explaining she’d wanted to get a lot of things sorted out before she came.

  She opened up her representation of the families, and spread it on Granny’s table, explaining who the people were and how they were connected.

  Granny crowed with delight as her gnarled forefinger traced relationships.

  ‘Bet Martha Stubbings—that’s Anthea’s mother—wouldn’t want to know she’s so closely related to the Wetherbys,’ she remarked, jabbing her finger on a particular intersection of the map. ‘Though the Wetherbys are good people, Martha’s grandmother married a man on the land—the squattocracy, we call them out here. Martha’s always made out her ancestors came straight from England and not on convict ships, but there’s Wetherby blood there, too.’

  Granny was obviously delighted by this bit of old history that had slipped her by. So much so, Caitlin hoped the old lady wouldn’t run into Martha Stubbings any time soon.

  ‘You’ve a lot of children at the bottom down here with red and green lines in them,’ Granny pointed out to her, ‘but they’ve all got other colours as well.’

  ‘I know,’ Caitlin told her, ‘and there are so many of them, I really need at least one more connection to narrow down the selection.’

  She hesitated, thinking again of her computer and the shadowy figure on the hospital veranda, certain Anne Jackson couldn’t have caused the damage, yet aware she was the one person with a secret to keep.

  Would Granny know the answer to that secret?

  Was it fair to ask?

  If children’s lives might later benefit, then, yes.

  ‘Taking you a while to decide something, isn’t it?’ Granny said, and Caitlin smiled at her perception.

  ‘Do you know who Harry Jackson’s father is?’

  There, the question was out.

  ‘No!’

  ‘You didn’t even stop and think,’ Caitlin protested.

  ‘I’ve been thinking for what—eight years? Nine? How old is the boy?’

  ‘He’s nine,’ Caitlin confirmed.

  ‘Well, that’s how long no one’s known and, believe me, keeping a secret like that in a town this small is no mean feat. Most people assume he was someone Anne met down in the city where she did her training because she was pregnant when she came home, but I’ve an idea he was local—someone she couldn’t name.’

  Granny lay back against her pillows and Caitlin realised the colour had leached from the elderly woman’s cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve tired you,’ she said, folding up the paper.

  ‘No,’ Granny told her, placing her cold, bony hand on Caitlin’s. ‘Just a ghost walking over my grave.’

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘I’ll be that ghost before long, I reckon,’ she added quietly, and Caitlin, with a rush of affection for this woman she barely knew, leant forward and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘No way!’ she said. ‘You’ve got to stick around to see how things work out.’

  Granny opened her eyes.

  ‘You’re the one who has to stick around,’ she said. ‘It’s OK for old people like me to get sick and die, but children? Before they’ve had a chance at life? You keep looking, girl, and fighting those who try to stop you. Do you think this harsh outback land would ever have been settled if it weren’t for the women who stuck it out, believing it would provide a better life for their children? That’s what you’re doing, girl, seeking a better life for everyone’s children.’

  She closed her eyes again, which gave Caitlin the opportunity to wipe some moisture from her own eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Granny,’ she whispered, then she kissed the wrinkled cheek again and quietly left the room.

  Without asking about the Neils, she realised as she walked along the corridor towards the kitchen and the back door.

  Nellie had been here forty years—maybe Nellie would know.

  But Nellie was off duty, a woman Caitlin hadn’t met reigning in her place in the kitchen.

  The Neils would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Back in her house, Caitlin dropped the bulging plastic bag on a chair and wondered what people at the golf club would think of it as a fashion accessory.

  Golf club—Connor. Would he be there?

  Which question led immediately to another. How should she behave if he was?

  No answer, so she showered, carrying the bag into the bathroom with her and making do with lukewarm water in case steam affected computers.

  Another question—the predictable dilemma of what to wear.

  She decided on jeans and her favourite white linen shirt—dressing for comfort and the confidence being comfortable brought.

  Hair up or hair down?

  Connor’s not going to be there, she reminded herself as she twitched and dithered, going for hair up and fiddling with eye-liner—something she rarely wore because she was so bad at applying it.

  Tonight, however, it worked, and she looked at the stranger in the mirror, seeing eyes made larger and darker by the black outline.

  She was immediately assailed by doubts that she’d overdone it, but a car was pulling up outside and it was too late to start again.

  She switched off the light, found the key, picked up her precious plastic bag and headed out the door.

  ‘Bringing your own dinner?’ Mike asked, holding the car door open for her.

  ‘No, my notes and laptop. Even with a new lock, I’m not leaving anything behind.’

  ‘I’ll lock it in the boot,’ Mike said, reaching out to take the bag from her.

  Caitlin hesitated, then reluctantly passed it over.

  ‘No one will know it’s there,’ he added, but uneasiness at being parted from it made her look around, seeking a watcher on the back veranda of the hospital or someone lurking near one of the outbuildings.

  ‘Anyway,’ Mike said, as they drove out, ‘I imagine whoever wrecked your computer thinks they’ve destroyed your work and that’s an end to it.’

  ‘You think that’s what they were doing—destroying my work?’

  Mike glanced her way.

  ‘Of course—what else would it be?’

  ‘I thought a warning,’ Caitlin answered hesitantly, as a whole new scenario built up in her head.

  ‘No,’ she said, as Mike pulled up outside a low-set brick building. ‘They didn’t look for disks or destroy the paper files that were in a folder under the table. Surely if they wanted to destroy my work, they’d have taken everything.’

  Mike raised his hand in a ‘don’t know’ gesture.

  ‘Who can say what the person was thinking?’ he said, opening his car door and getting out, then coming around to Caitlin’s side.

  She got out herself, in time to hear him say almost under his breath, ‘Particularly a person wielding an axe.’

  ‘An axe? Someone hit my computer with an axe?’

  Mike turned towards her, a frown drawing his sandy brows together.

  ‘I thought you’d seen it.’

  ‘Seen what?’ a lighter voice demanded, and Caitlin looked up to see Sue and Connor, backlit by the light inside the clubhouse.

  ‘Caitlin didn’t realise whoever wrecked her computer used an axe,’ Mike explained.

  That drew an exclamation of annoyance from Connor and from Sue a disgusted, ‘And I suppose you just told her and have now frightened the poor thing out of her wits
.’

  Connor, meanwhile, had stepped around Mike, stopping next to Caitlin and putting his hand tentatively on her shoulder.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what the idiot used,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s forget about it, and go inside for a drink. Sue and I have been abstaining until you arrived, although Sue won the ‘‘nearest the pin’’ and has been dying to celebrate.’

  Caitlin glanced up into his face as he ushered them all inside, but it was blank—shuttered against her.

  Unfortunately, her body still failed to realise it could no longer be attracted to his, and was telling her in countless ways just what it thought of this proximity, while her mind was such a swamp of dismay and disbelief—an axe, for goodness’ sake—she was tempted to give in to Connor’s demands and leave town.

  She didn’t—not right then. In fact, she let herself be guided by Connor to a chair, then sat in it, tense and twitchy—worse when Connor took the chair beside her, with Mike and Sue across the table from them.

  ‘So, tell me how it’s going,’ Sue demanded, while Mike went off to fetch drinks.

  ‘Not here, Sue.’ Connor answered before Caitlin had a chance to speak. ‘In fact, the less said about Caitlin’s research, here or anywhere in town, the better.’

  ‘Oh!’ Sue looked as surprised as she sounded, but, though Caitlin was equally surprised, she was also angered.

  ‘That’s ridiculous, Connor. You can’t hide what I’m doing here. Anyone who doesn’t already know just isn’t interested. What’s more, not talking about something doesn’t make it go away.’

  ‘And don’t I know it!’ he said bitterly, and Caitlin sensed he wasn’t thinking about the research. Sensed also that the gulf between them was widening to such an extent it would never be bridged, and regrets for what might have been between them threatened to swamp her.

  ‘So, how is it going?’ Sue asked again, ignoring Connor’s ban and taking Caitlin’s words as permission to discuss the research.

  ‘Promising,’ Caitlin replied, ‘but I can’t go further than that at the moment. I have a couple of things to follow up and should be able to do that tomorrow, then I have to collate what I have in order to see where to go next.’

  She smiled at Sue.

  ‘After that, who knows? I may have to return to Brisbane and find another theory to test.’

  ‘But if you find the threads you need—find some links between the children—what then?’

  ‘Then someone will take blood samples, run DNA tests and look for differences and similarities.’ She hesitated, glanced at Connor, who was studying his drink as if analysing its molecules, then added, ‘I’d like that someone to be me. I’d like the opportunity to follow through, which was the original intention. Finding genetic links is only the beginning, and in the end the theory could still lead to a dead end, but it would be my dead end.’

  Connor gave an explosive snort.

  ‘Can’t you just say failure—say you’re likely to fail—not use emotive language like ‘‘dead end’’?’

  He stood up and stormed away, Mike and Sue staring after him, Caitlin awash with guilt and regret. How could she have been so insensitive? Not thought first about her phrasing?

  He was thinking of Angie, of course. Thinking of the woman he had loved.

  The woman who was dead.

  ‘What’s eating him?’ Mike asked, turning to his wife for an explanation.

  ‘I’ve no idea. He played well so it can’t be his golf.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d better go,’ Caitlin suggested. ‘After all, this is your usual night out, and I’m the one upsetting him.’

  ‘Don’t you dare go,’ Sue warned her. ‘He’s a grown man. He’ll get over whatever it is that’s upsetting him.’

  But would he? Caitlin wondered.

  Would he ever get over Angie?

  The thought that he might not brought sadness to mix with the guilt, and she closed her eyes, wondering how a simple meal at the local golf club could have gone so wrong so quickly.

  Connor walked out of the clubhouse and down across the darkened fairways, unaware of where he was going, knowing only he had to walk off some of the tension that simmered in his body, like molten metal in a cauldron, ready to flare out, burning anyone unwary enough to come close.

  He’d been OK until Caitlin had walked into the clubhouse, blonde hair piled up on her head, revealing the long line of her neck, while wispy tendrils framed her delicate features. She was wearing blue jeans and a white shirt, not the most seductive or alluring clothes in the world, yet his body had ached with a fierce need and it had taken all his resolve not to go to her and take her in his arms—kiss her and claim her as his own, in front of most of the golf club members and any number of local drinkers who were propping up the bar.

  But she wasn’t his, and he doubted she would ever be because, irrational though it might be, deep down in his gut he knew the only way to keep her safe was to get her out of town. And for that, she’d hate him.

  The thought caused him physical pain, but he turned back towards the clubhouse. He’d apologise, then spend the evening with his friends. He’d talk and laugh and act as close to normal as he possibly could. Then tomorrow he’d offer to help her finish this initial stage of her work—accompany her as she tied up the loose ends.

  Mike saw him first and raised a hand in greeting, causing Caitlin to turn. Connor saw her eyes widen and a faint flush rise in her cheeks.

  He closed the distance between them in two strides, and leant on the back of the chair he’d vacated earlier.

  ‘If I apologise most humbly for my behaviour, will you let me join you?’

  He was looking at the three of them but guessed Caitlin would know he was speaking to her.

  ‘It’s me who should apologise,’ she said quietly, and reached out and rested her hand on his. ‘Come on, sit down and join us.’

  The touch sent fire spiralling through Connor’s blood, and the look in Caitlin’s eyes spread the heat along his nerves so desire now raged within him.

  He sat, aware the proximity would make matters worse, but with that renewed surge of lust came a momentous idea.

  They were two mature, consenting adults, who had—only last night?—agreed to explore the attraction that had flared between them.

  What better way to keep Caitlin safe than to spend the night in bed with her? Not platonically, as he’d stupidly suggested the previous evening, but playfully, healthily and pleasurably.

  He turned and smiled at her.

  ‘Forgive me for losing it?’ he asked quietly, while Mike and Sue debated what they’d eat.

  She smiled and touched his arm, high-wattage electricity surging through him.

  ‘I think I’m the one who should be asking that,’ she murmured. ‘It was thoughtless of me, Connor. I’m sorry.’

  She looked so genuinely upset he shifted his hand beneath the table to touch her denim-clad thigh, giving it a little consoling squeeze. Then his hand felt so comfortable there he let it linger, and the thigh didn’t move away, neither did its owner slap his face.

  Both, he decided, extremely good signs…

  They ordered their meal and Mike asked about the golf game. Sue teased him by saying she preferred Connor as a partner because he didn’t tell her what she was doing wrong every time she played a stroke, but Mike countered by reminding her she usually won when she played with him, and he hadn’t noticed her name being called out in the afternoon trophy list.

  ‘Apart from nearest the pin,’ she retorted.

  The amiable bickering defused the last of the tension—well, one kind of tension, Caitlin decided. The other tension she was feeling had nothing to do with Connor’s outburst earlier, but everything to do with the man himself.

  While her body delighted in the warm hand resting, oh, so casually against her thigh, debate raged in her head.

  It’s only sexual!

  So what’s wrong with that?

  Plenty, when you’re the kind of woman who
doesn’t go for quick sexual flings.

  Perhaps now’s the time to start.

  Nonsense!

  Sue interrupted with a question about Granny, but Connor fielded it and Caitlin returned to the mental argument.

  Why not?

  Ah, no quick answer.

  No slow answer either, she admitted to the demanding voice, but she suspected it might have something to do with the fact she felt more than pure sexual attraction towards Connor Clarke.

  ‘When will you release her?’

  Sue again, presumably still discussing Granny.

  But if it’s not sexual attraction, what is it?

  She heard a scoffing laugh echoing in her head. Don’t even think of love, it said. Not when the man concerned is still tied to a woman from his past.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEIR meals arrived, and conversation turned to food, then drifted to books, took in the weather—invariably included in any talk in the country—and somehow reached a debate on the importance of sport in the nation’s lifestyle.

  ‘I don’t mind watching sport on television,’ Caitlin said, deciding she should contribute something because she’d spent most of the meal thinking about Connor and wondering just where things stood between them.

  ‘Couch potato,’ Connor teased.

  He’d finished eating and his left hand had once again found its way to her thigh, where it was generating warmth throughout her body.

  ‘Talking of couches,’ Sue said, ‘I’m nearly ready for bed. It must be the fresh air and exercise that makes me so tired on golf days—I’m sure it’s more tiring than chasing the kids day in and day out.’

  ‘If you find golf too tiring, I’ll take over your day,’ Mike offered, and got an elbow in the ribs from his wife.

  ‘OK,’ he added, ‘I get the message. I’ll take you home.’

  He looked at Caitlin but before she could say anything, Connor spoke.

  ‘I’ll take Caitlin,’ he said.

  The fingers on her thigh exerted a little extra pressure, and he glanced her way, as if seeking her agreement.

  Mouth dry with newly generated excitement, she nodded. Enough debating, her head said firmly. Just go with the flow.